-       Luke Brassinga, Likeable Brands

So, you’ve decided to re-brand…

 This is a big decision. Something has led you here…maybe a lot of personnel changes, a restructuring, an influx of new products and services. Or, maybe you just feel like your current brand isn’t cutting it. You’re not getting the volume of customers you used to, your logo is feeling a little old-hat or your just plain sick of associating yourself with the same tagline, colour scheme and artwork.

Whatever the issue, a re-brand can work wonders for your company or it could be a huge flop. Most of this depends on the thought, time, and creative juice you pour into the re-branding effort.

I’ve often heard ‘re-branding’ referred to as a corporate buzzword…just another one of those things upper-level management like to say to make nothing sound like something. You know, like ‘synergy’ and ‘participaction.’

Well, that isn’t true. Re-branding is a real,  involved process. It’s risky, too.

The first thing you must decide in approaching a re-brand is why you want to do it…What has elicited the re-brand and prompted you to change? Once you know that, you can examine the best way to go about implementing change. Is this strictly an image-based re-brand? Are you creating a new tagline, more in-tuned with your company’s core values? Are you doing a website overhaul?

My advice for a successful re-brand is to go big or go home. You have to commit lots of time and thought to coming up with a new concept that works. Inevitably, you do have loyal customers who have become accustomed to a certain standard when interacting with your company’s brand. In re-branding, you don’t want to upset these customers, confuse or fluster them. You want them to have a clear understanding that your company is still upholding a high level of service, you’re just changing your look and feel to more poignantly communicate what makes you special; better than your competition.

Here’s how social media can help…

Extending the re-brand to your social media channels is a huge step toward making the whole process successful. Again, this stage can be daunting—you’ve gained followers with your existing brand. How do you know they’ll want you once you’ve changed? People have hopped off bandwagons because of botched re-brands. Anyone remember Cherry Coke?

The thought and commitment you applied to your re-brand needs to extend to your social media strategy. You need to ensure your fans and followers know why you decided to re-brand. If you don’t remain transparent throughout the re-branding process, you run the risk of confusing your followers and fans as to who you were and who you’ve become.

Make sure you announce your re-brand in the weeks preceding on your Twitter and Facebook. It’s a great way to generate hype and give your followers an opportunity to weigh in on what they’d like to see. Pick an aspect of your re-branded artwork or logo and design some new backgrounds, cover images and profile pictures for your social profiles. Drive traffic to your new imagery by asking your followers what they think of the new ‘look.’

Social media will be invaluable in promoting your re-brand, soliciting feedback on your company’s new identity and providing outreach for existing customers and followers who want to navigate your re-brand and explore your company’s new look and feel.

Some notable re-brands…

Keep in mind, these are just the logos. A lot more went into these corporate overhauls.

Tips for utilizing social media in your re-brand…

1/ Ask lots of questions. Every day.

If you want lots of feedback and a good read on how customers/followers are responding to your re-brand, you have to ask! Post questions on Twitter, Facebook and Google + with links to aspects of your new site, promo materials or logo. Leave your questions open-ended, give your followers a chance to express themselves. Not all the feedback you get will be constructive, but there’s a good chance at least one social media responder will give you something you can use…maybe something you hadn’t even thought of.

2/ Give your customers a voice and let them know they’re being heard.

Let customer/follower feedback be public. Even the things that aren’t overwhelmingly positive…and respond to everything thoughtfully. Imagine you were a loyal brand follower and then, out of the blue, everything you loved about that brand changed overnight—and you had no forum to express doubts, concerns or questions! Chances are, you may feel a little betrayed, out of the loop or confused.

Let your followers know you’re listening.

3/ Run a contest

Nothing gets people in a positive frame of mind like the chance to win free stuff. Put your new branded imagery to good use and develop a cool Facebook contest app that hypes the re-brand and gets people excited about your company’s new direction.

(Aside: Make sure your complying with Facebook’s contest guidelines. See Policy, procedure and the art of saving your hide)

The concept of creating a viral video for a viral marketing campaign has been a bee in my bonnet ever since I started in social media marketing. The truth is: it’s impossible to develop a video and know, with 100% certainty, that it will go viral. You could have a million-dollar budget, the best creative minds in the industry and still not achieve true virality.

But, in order for me to make my point, we have to take a few steps back and examine the nature of viral marketing, its history and why everyone seems to think there’s an ‘art’ or a ‘formula’ in creating a truly viral campaign.

A viral video is typically uploaded to a platform like YouTube or Vimeo and becomes popular because thousands, even millions, of people share it, interact with it, talk about it, and love it. Check out some popular examples here:

Here:

And here:

Virality is a digital extension of word-of-mouth marketing, which has long been considered the most powerful form of passing information and generating ‘buzz.’

This commonly held conception isn’t wrong! And, there are definite ways for an organization to take advantage of online word-of-mouth buzz in their marketing material. In fact, it’s what every campaign should aim for. Collective interest in a digital recapturing of word-of-mouth marketing is the reason why social media for business has become so widespread over the past five years or so. It’s the new word-of-mouth.

Creating a viral video is very attractive for a number of reasons, all boiling down to two key motivators: fame and money.

A handful of the most famous celebrities in popular culture today were born out of YouTube success. This, in turn, made them very wealthy. Even YouTube celebrities who don’t extend their act into other forms of mainstream media can be remunerated for their stroke of luck. YouTube compensated the parents of “David After Dentist” about $100,000 for their video’s success.

From a marketing standpoint, being the mind behind a viral campaign is an alluring prospect. In effect, many creative marketers use it as a benchmark for having championed the Internet, so to speak. At their core, most online platforms exist now to sell us things.

Whether we’re buying them by actually, physically purchasing them or buying into the idea through sharing it with our network of connections…we’re all digital consumers. Actualizing a viral video means whoever created it manipulated the selling power of the Internet to the highest degree. This is why a viral promo video is the digital white whale for so many creative marketing departments.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter…these platforms all have advertising. You can create a reasonable facsimile of a viral video by promoting it through social advertising. This has its benefits. If you pour enough money into advertising, you can generate thousands of views for your video and that looks really good when organic viewers stumble upon it.

It lends your brand credibility and brings a certain caché to your campaign. However, in my opinion, true virality is an intertwining of organic and viral: videos that take off on their own steam, with minimal promotion, simply because they speak to a majority of people…those are the truly viral videos. They have the most impact, create the most buzz and are the most elusive to content creators.

The Viral Myth stems from the widely held belief that you can harness the power of social networking and word-of-mouth marketing to blast something into cyberspace on an instantaneously global scale; that, using state of the art technology, psychology and creative juice, you can tap into people’s emotions, their will to learn, their very idea of themselves to catapult your YouTube video into astronomical success overnight.

You can’t.

Viral videos are successful because of certain compelling elements—aspects that tap into viewers’ need to share, their sense of common experience. No one can predict these hooks. If I were to guess, they’re most dependent on the widespread climate according to current affairs; what the major, international news stories are and how people are reacting to them. To forecast this type of sentiment requires more intuitive tools than I (or, I’d venture to guess, ANY creative digital marketing person) have in my arsenal.

A more realistic, attainable goal is, instead of setting out to make something viral, aim for impactful. You can still incorporate creative, emotional, and educational elements…just don’t do it for the sake of going viral. The worst thing about so many marketing campaigns now is that you can just tell they’re only making promo videos for the sake of going viral.

It’s as predictable as some of Stephen King’s more recent work…. you know, when he started writing books with movie scripts in mind. Let’s be honest–’Dreamcatcher’ vs. ‘Shawshank’? The quality is incomparable.

Lately, the message is secondary to the viral potential. Believe it or not, when you’re trying to predict which psychological triggers, which lame jokes and which crazy graphics will resonate with millions of people, you aren’t focusing on strengthening your brand. Like the Brad Pitt Chanel commercial, for instance:

I mean, obviously they would get a ton of views because A) It’s Brad Pitt and B) It’s Chanel. But is this a truly viral campaign? I don’t think so. I really don’t. It was discussed on popular talk shows. But, that’s because it was ridiculous. They weren’t on message and they were reaching. They were trying to create something dauntless…a testament to their company’s insight, their ability to gauge what gives people the shivers. But, his looming, vainglorious face was just unsettling. And it was so obvious they were just trying to go viral! They’re selling a woman’s perfume, for God’s sake and they used a man! Perhaps the most recognizable man in the world. Instead of skillfully crafting a message embedded in a clever, resonant ad campaign, they went for broke and artistically flopped.

Of course, Chanel isn’t the only guilty company, but this is a good example of how even huge multinationals can miss the mark when their only marketing goal is creating something viral. I think the most effective marketing campaigns, the ones that really deliver, are the ones that are tailored to a specific audience for a product. Well-rounded market research and thoughtful, targeted creative will yield the most impressive results. If the message is genuine and people relate to it…I think you may have a better chance of appealing to a larger common denominator, thus increasing your viral potential. A classic case of finding something when you aren’t looking.

Image Source: Gilbert Wilson, Moby Dick Arises from the Deep

1. Cautionary tales about becoming “addicted” to social media and
2. Everyone’s gettin’ hacked!

Call me crazy, but I feel like these two trends are inextricably linked.

The allegations of a social media-addicted generation conjure images of pathetic, friendless technophiles, huddled alone in basements, ardently refreshing their Facebook news feeds for a glimmer of interaction. Countless articles and studies make it seem like social media addiction is a sweeping epidemic, all but inescapable. One even goes so far as to claim that addiction to Facebook and Twitter is direr an affliction than addiction to cigarettes.

Well, I beg to differ. I’ve proclaimed myself “addicted” to social media at various times in my life and I don’t even have a basement…

More to the point, I think Millennials are dealing with a widespread digital addiction… it’s just been mislabeled.

It’s not an addiction to the social networking platforms themselves that’s becoming so prevalent. It’s an addiction to the immediacy of information. We’ve become accustomed to knowing everything right now. Not only do we need the content at our fingertips…we need to interact with it. We have a thirst for access and a desire for insider info. With more networking capability and increased transparency through the web, we’re becoming more and more fixated on manipulating our sources of information—or at least having the ability to.

This “addiction” isn’t one that’s exclusive to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Google + and platforms like them definitely allow us to share, promote and manipulate content to a greater extent. That’s why we spend so much time on them. But, our fixation is becoming more deeply rooted than simply scrolling through pictures of friends’ weekend escapades, commenting and “liking” as we see fit.

So many mass-media outlets are exponentially more accessible and transparent on the web than they ever were. All major newspapers have “comment” sections now– allowing anyone and everyone to weigh in and express their opinions. Most multinational corporations have Facebook and Twitter platforms. If we disagree with one of their decisions, we just need to post it on their wall. Chances are, that post will be seen by thousands, and either supported or trashed publicly depending on the viewpoint. We feel powerful on the social web. Like our opinions are seen and responded to…respected. So, when we are denied accessibility, or feel as though a particular company or platform is trying to keep the digital proletariat out, well…

Enter: hackers.

“Hacker” used to be an overwhelmingly negative term. Hackers were the people who promulgated my above characterization of lonely technophiles in basements. They existed to procure information nobody cared about or needed. Obscure website codes and passwords. They were a little dangerous; some inexplicably had the ability to access our emails addresses and sent countless emails from Arabian princes who were looking to rid themselves of piles of cash. Mostly, we saw them as eccentric little geeks with nothing better to do.

Has that changed! Hackers are the mavericks of Generation Y. They have the ability to manipulate information and the platforms through which it’s delivered. They’re the new activists; in the ‘70’s, they would have been the radicals marching up to the White House steps to violently protest the Vietnam War.

Now, they get up in the morning, French Press a cup of coffee, crack their knuckles and make a mockery of Burger King’s Twitter account, jeopardizing a multimillion dollar corporate culture.

Or, they tried to. They changed all the branding on the BK Twitter page to McDonalds’ branded content. They tweeted things like, “We’ve been sold to McDonald’s!”

The reality of the situation? Burger King got 30% more followers from the recent hacking scandal.

What does that tell us?

People crave drama and want to be in the know. Realizing Burger King was a target for hackers made more people want to tune in and, whether we realized it or not, strengthened the BK brand. Probably not the overall goal of a hack job that consisted of changing BK’s Twitter handle and background art to McDonalds’.

Nevertheless, hackers are endeavoring to realize a collective dream (read: obsession) of completely free-flowing information on the web. One commonality throughout most of the coverage of recent hackings is a tone of admiration for the hackers and a scoff at the hacked. In a way, the collective strive for transparency and open channels between consumers and corporations is a positive thing. But, it’s definitely reached the level of a frenzied clamour for more information, faster, on a minute-to-minute basis.

So, where is all this leading?

Inevitably, the culmination of each and every article on our addiction to the social web is a frantic call for a social media “diet.” We’re implored to purge ourselves of our need to interact with a network of connections via an online platform. We’re begged to turn our backs on the instant gratification of the Twitter feed and the Google alert.

I don’t think the answer is to disengage completely.

I think the answer is to be more judicious in the kind of content we willfully ingest. Instead of blindly undergoing osmosis each time we fire up the RSS feed and deifying hackers who manipulate content and platforms, we need to take a measured approach and see hackers for who they are: a subculture of intuitive problem solvers, comfortable outside the law, who have set out to make a statement. We don’t need to respond and react to every piece of content we receive, and we don’t need to assume conspiracy and corporate manipulation just because multinationals are present and active on our social media platforms. It’s exhausting, feeling obligated to weigh in and develop an opinion on every Tweet, blog post and SubReddit. Measure yourself: react to content that has meaning for you.

Or, take a few hours off. I do it all the time. I leave my phone and my laptop behind and I sit in a coffee shop with a book or a newspaper. I know that might seem like a facile suggestion. But when I tell my friends I do this from time to time, they all seem pretty flabbergasted that I could last three or four hours without my phone or laptop. And, I definitely couldn’t every day. I live my life in social media and interactive content—all us Gen-Y’ers do, to a certain extent.

We’ve always had the freedom to to moderate our relationship with mass media. That hasn’t changed. It’s just become more difficult with constant bombardment. Taking a measured approach will require a shift in thinking and a step back– these are things that aren’t always easy to put into practice. Especially with new media and interactive development being the fastest growing industries in North America. We can’t purge ourselves of social media and we can’t ignore a collective fascination with receiving and interacting with content immediately. We can temper ourselves, however. We can appreciate hackers who attempt to make online corporate culture an open forum and we can definitely weigh in on timely news as it’s delivered to us. But, we can decide whether or not to let the immediacy of online content and the ability to interact with it overwhelm our lives.

1/ You’ve got to practice. Playing a lot certainly helps. But, without practise, you’re going to get stuck at a certain level and not advance…which might lead you to my next point…

2/ Stop trying to find the answer through gear. This is, perhaps, the biggest error I’ve made in both disciplines. Because I tend to buy used gear, I’ve met tons of people who fell into the same trap. It can give you a temporary bump. But, at the end of the day, a player can play well on almost anything and a hacker is a hacker regardless of what he spends on gear.

3/ Practice builds confidence too. Self-belief based on reality, not fantasy, is a powerful ingredient in improving at just about anything. Step up to the tee or the stage with no other thought on your mind than, “I can.” Chances are you will.

4/ Surround yourself with like-minded individuals. Practicing and building confidence is easier if you have buddies on the same journey. A support network is critical in mastering any new endeavour.

5/ Play with people who are better than you. The water level effect works and you will rise to the occasion when forced. You can learn from watching and listening. See how easy they make it? It’s because they’ve followed the steps above. The greats have had mentors on their journey.

6/ Relax, take a breath and slow it down. I’ve been playing guitar most of my life. It’s only recently that I discovered the mystery as to why sometimes I play better than others. Too much tension in my left hand would make my soloing go from fluid to manipulating a series of vice grips. The same applies to golf. You may want to grip it and rip it. But, if you grip too tight, you lose the fluidity of motion, chop at the ball, not finish your swing and have an unfavourable outcome.

7/ Focus and enjoy. Watch great musicians or golfers and you will see these two shared traits. They are in the zone—nothing distracts them.  They enjoy what they are doing immensely. It’s enjoyable to watch and can be an inspiration for your own pursuits.

Lee’s Quote for the day

“You can never really master anything, there’s always something to learn and when you finally realize that you have the best chance of enjoying yourself and moving forward. “

Yet, stifling as they may be, policy and procedure are necessary evils. Especially when it comes to social media. Running a really creative social media campaign is essential for it’s success— nothing’s riskier than running a campaign with no creative content, a stale Twitter strategy featuring Tweets with no voice and a Facebook page with no semblance of company culture. If you don’t have the right people planning your campaign, you run the risk of spending money on a social media program that yields little to no results, simply because your social media managers didn’t inject enough creativity into the plan.

That being said, it’s so important to realize the policies and procedures of each social networking platform you’re using, and stay within the boundaries. Probably the most tangible example of this is the Facebook contest.

Here’s a scenario faced by many social media-literate business people:

You want to run a really great Facebook contest for your company. You want it to really wow your audience, and you want the numbers to be good. A lot of engagement, a lot of traffic for your site and ton of likes for your Facebook page. You want the contest to be something few companies have attempted, something beyond the facile “Like us and win!” concept.

Great! So, now you set forth planning. You devise a scheme that makes use of the tagging and sharing functions. It’s perfect. It’s easy; it’s engaging…there’s just one problem: you haven’t read Facebook’s policy on promotions.

It’s an innocent mistake! No one told you that you needed some sort of permission to promote your business…you thought that’s what Facebook was for! Why have the option to create a page for your business if there are strings attached to how you promote it to the community?

I know.

Thing is, Facebook is stepping up its game when it comes to protecting the privacy of it’s users. So, if you’re going to be collecting personal information with the intention of contacting them if they win, Facebook wants everyone to know that THEY aren’t the ones soliciting this information, and they won’t have access to it. Also, those awesome functions you want to use for your contest? You know, tagging, sharing and all that great stuff? They belong to Facebook. Now, you can’t use them as a mechanism for entering a company contest. In fact, the only Facebook action you’re allowed to use as a condition of entry to your contest is the “Like.”

I know all of this sounds like a major damper on your creative ability…but, it doesn’t have to be. There are solutions:

1/ Familiarize yourself with the Facebook guidelines. You can find them here.

So, now you know you need to develop something called a Facebook application in order to run your contest.

2/ Look into Facebook app development. There are some great DIY sites. But, if you don’t have the time or the proclivity, no problem! You can outsource all your contest development needs to independent developers or a creative marketing agency.

3/ Research some successful Facebook contests. Take a gander at a few right here!

The upshot of this Facebook contest policy lesson is: if you don’t make sure you’re within the guidelines, you run the risk of having your contest shut down and potentially being banned from Facebook for a while. That’s disappointing and detrimental to your overall strategy.

So, take the time, get to know the platform you’re working with. While you’re at it, maybe start thinking about a social media policy. You know, so you don’t end up like Applebee’s.

When I called, I got their automated attendant. No problem. I selected what seemed to be the appropriate extension. I was put on hold for about 45 minutes. No problem again, I put the call on speaker phone and continued working. This is the type of wait I’ve come to expect from Bell or Rogers. A representative answered and after explaining my situation, she said she would have to transfer me to another department. This happened 5 times…

Somewhere in the middle of all this a savvy representative said, “If you don’t currently have home phone service, we can’t move the line.” I’m typically a pretty patient guy but really…that’s your best answer? I got transferred again.

Finally, I got transferred to a department outside their regular menu and got a direct line that I had to dial myself. I explained my situation one more time. The gentleman on the other end candidly explained “they don’t know what they’re doing” relative to my experience to date. I asked him hypothetically, “How much trouble would I get in if I were to cut the lines?” He responded, “If you don’t have service there is no current running through the lines and even if there was, it is too low a voltage to hurt you”. He then directed me to call the main number, ask for “moving phone lines,” which was exactly where I started an hour and a half ago. I decided not to start the process over again.

All I can say is I now have an unobstructed view from my deck…no wires in sight.

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“Just imagine what a big business could accomplish if they figured how to serve their customers like a small business must… just to survive. Can you imagine keeping your customers on hold for 1.5 hours, still not resolving their problem and staying in business?”

As part of a company, you want to find a way to build your brand and attract new prospects. Social media is a new, increasingly widespread way to create a community around your corporate identity.

But, how do you navigate all those channels? How do you find interesting ways to interact with users on every platform? How can you create enough branded content to draw and hold the interest of a new generation of web-savvy consumers?

How do you find your social media voice?

I’ve spent the past four to five years working in and around content creation for the web and social media. I remember making my first Facebook page, editing my first YouTube video and breaking 100 followers on my Twitter account.

I think what’s resonated most throughout all my social engagement is how exciting it is; knowing your messages are reaching people and realizing users are interacting with the content you share.

This sense of novelty and excitement is the engine behind social media as a tool for successful online marketing.

Howard Schultz, now-CEO of Starbucks, famously credits social media for pulling the coffee giant out of dire straits.

In 2007, Starbucks’ stock dropped 42 percent. It didn’t look good.

Enter: Schultz.

He used the web and interactive digital media to drive a complete overhaul of the company’s image and branding. Because of that initiative, Starbucks has raked in over $10 billion in revenue and employs around 150, 000 people.

In an article posted on MyNorthwest.com dated 2010, Schultz is quoted. “(…) Trust isn’t something you build through traditional marketing. You do that through integrating social and digital media. It is a science, as well as an art, to understand how to do this in a way that is authentic and genuine, and not just marketing.”

That, in my opinion, is one of the most ringing endorsements for finding your social media voice in order to run a successful program. Utilizing social networking for your business is cost-effective and wide reaching.

In 2013, Palmer Marketing is committed to increasing our social media footprint, digging down to find a real identity on the social web and becoming an example and a resource for clients, new and old, as they venture into social media as a marketing tool.

Here are some tenets of our newly resolved commitment to social media. They’re centered upon three key platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

1. We are going to drive engagement on Facebook by making it personal.

Not everyone wants a presence on the social web. That’s totally fine. Nothing wrong with wanting to keep your personal life out of the public eye. But, as a Social Media Coordinator, I’ve committed to integrating my social profile into the ones I manage. I’ve reached out to my network via Facebook and garnered more attention for Palmer’s page. The most successful social media platforms are the ones with the most company involvement. When everyone engages, shares, likes and posts, it creates an undeniable buzz. This will be a key element in finding our identity on the social web—making it apparent that real people are driving engagement.

2. We’re going to use LinkedIn to network with other business professionals and share important industry information.

LinkedIn is an endless font of industry news, networking opportunities and sales leads. We will use this platform, in the right measure, to position ourselves as a resource for people and businesses within our network.

3. We are going to engage more via Twitter and we’re going to sound like human beings when we do it.

Twitter has a user-ship of over 500 million. This comprises a wealth of interest groups. Twitter offers tools for targeting people, discovering what they’re talking about and joining the conversations. We’re hoping to see a lot more engagement, attract a larger audience, and build our brand. As with our Facebook engagement, we’re going to humanize our Twitter feed—ensure our voice is well received and we’re approachable.

As we continue to experiment with and grow our presence on social networks over the next few months, I’m really hoping to create our social media voice. I’m excited to engage our existing community on the social web and attract some new members. We want to act as a resource for social networking knowledge; we’re going forward recognizing that it’s a little unnerving to start building a social media campaign from the ground up, but with a voice, some consistency, commitment and lots of interaction, social media is a powerful marketing tool.

Because the holiday season is the one time of year that we can all take a break, I do tend to reflect and set goals for the New Year. If you set 10 goals and only achieve 3, you are still moving forward. Here are a few tips for effective goal setting that I have either discovered myself or have heard and tried on my journey thus far.

My Top 10

1/ Be realistic with your goal setting. You need to believe they can happen. The ideal scenario doesn’t exist anywhere but your own mind… on a very good day. Scale back your expectations to make progress…baby steps are okay.

2/ Don’t look too far down the road. Most goals are based on changing behaviours and if you give yourself too long of a deadline, you won’t get at it while you’re keen.

3/ Plan the reward now and book the trip or schedule the celebration. You rarely achieve things by accident and celebrating your successes is a good thing.

4/ Implementing change and making it a habit is hard…take it one step at a time. Master one new behaviour and then move on to the next. Start with the one that is either the most important or most achievable, then build on that success.

5/ Let your family know and maybe close friends know but don’t tell it to the world. If it is business goals your setting, your team is your business family and sharing is necessary and energizing for all.

6/ Successful goal setting is all about maintaining the hope, the self belief and the reason you set them as objectives in the first place. Not achieving your goals doesn’t mean they weren’t important. It means they slipped from being a priority or a possibility on a daily basis.

7/ If you’re like me, a lot of times you talk yourself out of changing your unwanted behavior. It’s a confidence thing and positive thoughts are a critical ingredient. If you can talk yourself out of it, you can talk yourself into it.

8/ Don’t make it all about yourself. Think about your friends and family and how achieving these goals might be helpful for them.

9/ Conversely, “you can’t please everyone, so you may as well please yourself”. Just because someone else wants you to change a particular behaviour, isn’t enough nor will it be all that satisfying…chances are that people that are out to change you will just find something else about you to pick on anyway.

10/ It sure feels good to succeed and it’s true that success sets up future success…keeps life interesting!

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“My goal this year is to walk like I’m 4” taller, even though at my age, by the end of the year I’ll probably end up 1” shorter”. 

It was a good year for us and the industry too. Caution is still King but not as many complaints around…everyone has made the adjustments needed to cope with what seems to be “the new economy”.

The driver crisis hasn’t brought the industry to a standstill yet and somehow the folks at the helm of the various trucking operations will find their way through it. It’s a tough business but one that I have enjoyed supporting, in my small way, for what seems like a lifetime… 2013 is our 25^th year!

There was a record turnout at the recent Toronto Transportation Club dinner and Don Cherry was certainly a factor in the increased attendance. Sports and transportation have always seemed to go hand in hand…a guy thing I guess. Still, more and more ladies are making their mark on the industry and they were well represented at the event.

We added a person in Montreal and it appears to be a tough market to crack for an English company, even though our guy there is French. I’ve spoken with some English carrier customers and they have found it equally difficult. We’re still working on that one.  The reverse scenario appears to be true for our Quebec customers breaking ground in Ontario. If anyone has some tips on that one, they would gratefully be received by all.

We added an account manager in Toronto too, which has been a great help. We had continued to run a bit too lean coming out of the recession. We’ve seen many of our carrier customers start to add bodies as well…a good sign I hope.

We’re adding a young gal in the New Year to help with social media. As mentioned when I spoke at the recent Transportation Summit, Canadian transportation has some catching up to do in this area and we are gearing up to help further with this in 2013.

When I looked over our account list for 2012, I saw many loyal customers that have been with us for decades and something new…a high number of good size accounts that came as a result of our web marketing. The web in 2012 was good news for smaller companies. A shift is occurring, with more and more buyers sourcing on the web. Resource to resource, a 1 million dollar company can get as many opportunities from web marketing as a 200 million dollar company… if they are willing and able to create the same amount of content and use proper search engine optimization.

I’m still amazed when people today, running great companies, don’t put much stock in the power of the web to build their business, help with recruiting, or simply make a favourable impression on customers, suppliers and their carrier partner network. More than ever, it’s not “a” or “b” when it comes to choosing the best way to market, it’s “a, b, c, & d”. That will be our core message for the upcoming year. Add to your relationships and referral business, with the new techniques available…add to, not replace!

Best of the holidays to everyone and we’ll see you in the New Year.

Lee’s quote for the day

“There’s nothing like taking a couple of steps back or maybe sideways, to allow you to see the necessary steps forward.” 

I have done the renovation thing several times before and I’m comfortable acting as the contractor and hiring the various sub trades. The domino effect can work for you or against you and the master plan is dependent on the performance of each individual in the process. If each aspect goes smoothly you forge ahead in good fashion. If one area falls short, it can throw a wrench into everything.

In our case we’re dealing with an old home with a boiler system. We put in a new boiler and have had a few hiccups in the transition that caused delays across all the applicable trades. It’s a radiator system and without giving a lot of detail, the supplier has had to come in several times to fix errors on his part. The initial errors and resulting delays had me thinking I had made the wrong choice in suppliers. The supplier’s quick response to fixing the problems, not making lame excuses or pointing fingers elsewhere, redeemed my faith in their abilities. It could have gone another way but taking the right approach to the situation saved the day. Sorting through the problems together helped us get to know each better and actually created a closer business relationship. Since then we had a heating problem at our office. Guess who I called?

No one needs extra problems but when they do occur, you certainly learn about the people you’re dealing with in an accelerated fashion. You can drop the ball and recover… just don’t make a habit of it.

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“Did you ever just remember that you forgot something? It’s a bad feeling but it’s still better than forgetting something you were supposed to remember or remembering something you we’re trying to forget.”